原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
捉弄獃子 A Chance To Tease Him
真個行者暗笑道：「也是捉弄獃子一番。」就把繩兒扣在他腰裡，撮弄他出戰。真个行者暗笑道：「也是捉弄呆子一番。」就把绳儿扣在他腰里，撮弄他出战。
逐句解 Line by line
真個行者暗笑道：「也是捉弄獃子一番。」
真个行者暗笑道：「也是捉弄呆子一番。」
Wukong laughed to himself: "Here is a chance to have some sport with the fool."
捉弄 — to play a trick on someone, with the sense of setting them up rather than merely joking.
就把繩兒扣在他腰裡，撮弄他出戰。
就把绳儿扣在他腰里，撮弄他出战。
So he buckled the cord about Bajie's waist and packed him off to the fight.
撮弄 — to work someone into doing a thing. Paired with the word before it, the two make the whole scheme plain.
The narrator gives us Wukong's private thought and then, in one sentence, the action that follows from it. Bajie has asked for a lifeline and is being handed a leash. He does not know the difference, and the two words the passage uses for what Wukong is doing both mean to manipulate someone rather than to help them.
It is worth being clear about what Wukong has agreed to. He has taken on the responsibility of pulling Bajie out of danger, while privately deciding the arrangement is entertainment. Everything that goes wrong in the next few pages goes wrong because the man holding the rope thought the rope was a joke.